The Hobbit weekend december the 16th

[Hopeless]

So by this point I hope to have watched the movie but more importantly will be meeting for the last rpg session before the new year and I wanted some second opinions...

I was suggesting running a modified version of the Lord of the Rings which was originally set under 3.0 dnd but one of the players isn't keen on dnd at all so I suggested Legend which is why I'm starting this thread.

What do you think?

The players start off as Frodo, Merry, Pippin and Samwise and gain Strider once they reach Bree and Arwen once they pass Weathertop before gaining access to the others once they reach Rivendell.

BUT given every time one of the others runs a game with a link to a book or movie series they can't help modifying things and I want to know your viewpoint also suggestions on important characters such as Gandalf, Saruman, the Ringwraiths, do I include Tom Bombadil and do I allow them to swap out another member of the fellowship so Arwen can be part of the rest of the adventure?

What if Boromir doesn't succumb to the ring's influence, how do I run that exactly?

Seriously am I getting in too deep already?

 

[JP42]

I would be hesitant to try to replicate things from the books as they happened. Give them the four Hobbit protagonists, and let things happen as they happen. Those who have read the novels may try to steer the game in the "right" direction while others may have different ideas.

It might be that Boromir doesn't succumb. Maybe it's Elrond who fails his checks and tries to take the ring. Still makes for an interesting game, right?

 

[Hopeless]

I was thinking what if Gandalf went to visit Saruman but after he told Saruman where it was he made a more active effort to locate the ring?

The Riders were already heading for the shire, gollum was released after telling his side of the story and Aragorn/Strider was already heading for Bree to report to Gandalf.

The hobbits flee the shire barely a step ahead of the riders almost as if something had alerted them to Frodo's departure, I was wondering whether to have the riders be the mortal descendnats of the original nine who function as their scouts to make it a little more equal if they get into a fight.

Bree however should be an entirely different story, if Frodo reveals the ring everyone there should be interested and it wouldn't be the riders storming their rooms!

Bilbo has already reached Rivendell, I can't help wondering if he was pursued and thats why they missed Frodo believing Bilbo wouldn't have left the ring behind willingly...

So the three behind them and six ahead who turn to ride after them but since they didn't include that bit about them having to buy a new pony named Bill it wouldn't have left any clue where they were heading for unless Strider told somebody or they were being followed?

Weathertop makes an interesting choice if perhaps Strider went there to evade pursuit but the fire's the halflings set up is what led the riders' straight to them.

Still not sure to make them truly supernatural but rather have them jump off the top to escape capture or the fire thereby hide the fact they're decidedly not as powerful as thought...

 

[Hopeless]

So the ring...

Grants invisibility however it doesn't work on the undead or spirits and those with spirit sight who automatically see them as they've effectively entered the spirit world.

The ring was designed to command the other rings, however the wearer has to possess the power necessary to command the others so theoretically Frodo could have turned the ringwraiths had the witch king not been present?

The Ring has a malevolent presence, I'd say it has its own Power score since its supposed to be the phylactery of Sauron that kind of indicates it should have automatically overwhelmed any mortal wearer so why did Frodo prove so resistant?

Perhaps its because up to this point the halflings weren't part of the middle earth lore, all of the other rings were made for one of the races, dwarves had 7, humans had 9 the elves had 3 and sauron made the master ring so perhaps his ring could control any of the human, elvish and dwarvish races but not those unrelated to any of them?

The Orcs were said to have been created from horribly mutilated and tortured elves, not sure about goblins but the uruk-hai were linked to the orcs albeit less effected by the sunlight.

So because Sauron didn't make any rings for the halflings they were essentially immune to his ring's malevolence but over time that wouldn't be enough.

Bilbo carried it for how long?

Gollum for about a century or so after Isildur died, so Bilbo's wish to go for a holiday might have been the ring's efforts to return to Mordor but when Frodo got the ring the effects only became noticeable when Frodo entered the lands of Mordor?

Certainly food for thought!

 

[Da Boss]

Be worried is some asks about contacting the Eagles and the lack of air defences that guard Mordor

 

[tneva82]

Perhaps its because up to this point the halflings weren't part of the middle earth lore, all of the other rings were made for one of the races, dwarves had 7, humans had 9 the elves had 3 and sauron made the master ring so perhaps his ring could control any of the human, elvish and dwarvish races but not those unrelated to any of them?

I don't think ring was any "put it on and bang you're controlled" type of thing. It does it's evil slowly, speed dependant on wearer's(or those around him) willpower. Frodo simply had strong willpower which allowed him to resist the effect longer than others.

Isildur had the ring and he didnt' go all evil-controlled. About only effect was that he couldn't bring himself to throw the ring to fire(quite obviously first thing ring would aim at and seeing it's not something wearer would neccessarily consider essential from the get-go probably relatively easy to archieve)

 

[Hopeless]

Be worried is some asks about contacting the Eagles and the lack of air defences that guard Mordor

Already covered plan on revealing that flaming eye can actually fireball anything passing through Mordor airspace which is why they don't automatically send out air patrols to avoid "friendly fire"! :twisted:

The Eagles won't do anything of the sort and only Radagast can ask them, funny enough he asks them to check out why no birds fly inside Mordor's borders... at all! :shock:

Have this image of someone in Gondor trying to use a catapult to fire people inside the border up means of further up the mountain range only to have the flaming eye fire straight back at them! :mrgreen:

Why doesn't Sauron use this against Aragorn and his army... because Gandalf and his ring of fire made it useless for Sauron to do so!

Yes one eagle with gandalf could try to fly into Mordor but he wouldn't reach Mount Doom and he didn't reveal he had that ring until the end didn't he?!

 

[tneva82]

Be worried is some asks about contacting the Eagles and the lack of air defences that guard Mordor

Already covered plan on revealing that flaming eye can actually fireball anything passing through Mordor airspace which is why they don't automatically send out air patrols to avoid "friendly fire"! :twist



Eagles won't do anything of the sort and only Radagast can ask them, funny enough he asks them to check out why no birds fly inside Mordor's borders... at all! :shock:

Have this image of someone in Gondor trying to use a catapult to fire people inside the border up means of further up the mountain range only to have the flaming eye fire straight back at them! :mrgreen:

Why doesn't Sauron use this against Aragorn and his army... because Gandalf and his ring of fire made it useless for Sauron to do so!

Yes one eagle with gandalf could try to fly into Mordor but he wouldn't reach Mount Doom and he didn't reveal he had that ring until the end didn't he?!

I wonder why people keep mentioning eagles. Frodo plus eagle would be pergect way to hand the ring to sauron. Frodo tries it, frodo captured by flying nazghul. Mordor is hard'y lacking in aa department.

 

[Olaus Petrus]

You're trying to run adventure based on the entire book in one session?

I wish you good luck, personally when I run games based on books like Middle-Earth Roleplaying, Call of Cthulhu, Stormbringer, Elric of Melniboné etc. I try to avoid events of the books, because in my opinion people have too great tendency either to follow events of the book in every detail or try to derail the story completely. Old MERP books had stats for one ring and heroes of the Tolkien's books, but I rarely used those. Players encountered Gandalf and Elrond as helpful NPCs, but my campaign happened years before the events of The Hobbit.

I haven't read latest LoTR RPGs rules, but my friend said that it's quite decent.

 

[Faelan Niall]

While legend is certainly one of the better systems for running a Middle Earth campaign, running the books is almost never a good idea. I have found it better to run things elsewhere and have the players indirectly contribute to the end result.

Sauron loses because the players led a rebellion in the lands of the Haradhrim, in fact he would have twice as many troops, but he had to leave half the army there to secure his supply lines and pin down the rebels.

Dol Guldur is filled with nasty critters again time to clear it out.

Orcs are streaming down from the Ered Luin to destroy the Lake people and the Lonely Mountain.

None of these require you to deal with either railroading players, dealing with the purist player who can't stand to see anything change, or the players looking to intentionally derail everything just to get your goat.

 

[Faelan Niall]

One more thing the whole question behind why the Eagles don't simply fly Frodo in. My guess has always been that the Ring is such an unnatural thing of corruption, that they absolutely refuse to be anywhere near it. Once it is destroyed Frodo gets his lift.

 

[Olaus Petrus]

One more thing the whole question behind why the Eagles don't simply fly Frodo in. My guess has always been that the Ring is such an unnatural thing of corruption, that they absolutely refuse to be anywhere near it. Once it is destroyed Frodo gets his lift.

Bilbo already had the Ring when eagles saved him from the orcs. But maybe eagles simply had something else to do.

 

[tneva82]

One more thing the whole question behind why the Eagles don't simply fly Frodo in. My guess has always been that the Ring is such an unnatural thing of corruption, that they absolutely refuse to be anywhere near it. Once it is destroyed Frodo gets his lift.

Bilbo already had the Ring when eagles saved him from the orcs. But maybe eagles simply had something else to do.

Yeah. Like make damned sure they don't get hunted down by flying beasts in mordor, some which will be carrying Nazghul.

Eagles might be animals but in LOTR the eagles are pretty damn SMART animals. Why anybody would think they would be willing to do suicide and in the process hand the ring to sauron.

Seriously that's arqument that's just case of trying to find plot holes just for sake of it. There's better targets for plot hole issues than that.

 

[SSWarlock]

<snip> Mordor is hardly lacking in aa department.

The most powerful weapon of which is Sauron's will itself. The Eagles likely couldn't stand up to his will when it was focused on them individually. Not that many in Middle Earth could. I'm amazed at how many people completely miss the fact that it was Sauron's will (as in emotional manipulation) alone that kept the forces of Mordor together. It's in the books, including the Silmarillion, and blindingly obvious (or so I thought) at the end of the Return of the King movie when the One Ring was destroyed.

 

[tneva82]

<snip> Mordor is hardly lacking in aa department.

The most powerful weapon of which is Sauron's will itself. The Eagles likely couldn't stand up to his will when it was focused on them individually. Not that many in Middle Earth could. I'm amazed at how many people completely miss the fact that it was Sauron's will (as in emotional manipulation) alone that kept the forces of Mordor together. It's in the books, including the Silmarillion, and blindingly obvious (or so I thought) at the end of the Return of the King movie when the One Ring was destroyed.

That too! Pretty much only way to get there was to do it in a way that Sauron does not see. Flying top of an eagle is "hardly" stealthy way to do it. Now guess if you assume that Sauron isn't looking around and there's nobody with working eyes that even occasionally glances up to sky...Kinda big assumptions IMO.

 

[Hopeless]

As fun as its been they're going to try Decipher Games version, just hope it doesn't fall flat like it did the first time he tried running it which might be more to teething troubles but what he has planned will effect it far more so wish me luck!

Was thinking they'd start off as halflings and get the choice of an extra character at certain points so if they reach the end of the fellowship they'd split into two groups with 4 heading into Mordor led by Frodo and the other 4 heading to Rohan led by Aragorn was interested in seeing how they split the rest since Gandalf would be lost in Moria to even things out as I planned that the reason halflings could carry the ring uneffected was because Sauron hadn't planned for them and as long as they don't use the ring they remain uneffected.

So if you had the choice who would you assign to which group? (Am assuming Boromir survives with option Faramir can replace a character during trip to Mordor and whats her name can replace a character in Aragorn/Strider's group)

Group A heading to Mordor
Led by Frodo
1)
2)
3)

Group B heading to Rohan to recruit help to draw Sauron's attention and divert Saruman's forces
led by Aragorn/Strider
1)
2)
3)

 

[SSWarlock]

Group A
Frodo
Sam
Legolas
Gollum

Group B
Everybody else

The only way Group A will survive is by stealth and keeping an extremely low profile. Just like in the original books. Legolas is the only one with the presence of mind, willpower, and natural stealth to be of use. Everyone in the Fellowship just can't cut it. Even then, Legolas may end up being a liability because of his hatred/disgust for goblins and orcs. Really, the original group of Frodo, Sam, and Gollum was about as perfect as it could be.

 

[Olaus Petrus]

One more thing the whole question behind why the Eagles don't simply fly Frodo in. My guess has always been that the Ring is such an unnatural thing of corruption, that they absolutely refuse to be anywhere near it. Once it is destroyed Frodo gets his lift.

Bilbo already had the Ring when eagles saved him from the orcs. But maybe eagles simply had something else to do.

Yeah. Like make damned sure they don't get hunted down by flying beasts in mordor, some which will be carrying Nazghul.

Eagles might be animals but in LOTR the eagles are pretty damn SMART animals. Why anybody would think they would be willing to do suicide and in the process hand the ring to sauron.

Seriously that's arqument that's just case of trying to find plot holes just for sake of it. There's better targets for plot hole issues than that.

Well, naturally there's the Ringwraiths and Eye of Sauron who guard Mordor, but I was thinking more the fact that while the eagles are creatures of Manwë, they are very independent minded and despite the fact that they hate the orcs and occasionally help in the battle against Morgoth and Sauron they do it as it suits to them. They don't seem particularly keen on carrying people around or getting too involved into matters of men, who they don't seem to like too much.

 

[tneva82]

Group A
Frodo
Sam
Legolas
Gollum

Group B
Everybody else

The only way Group A will survive is by stealth and keeping an extremely low profile. Just like in the original books. Legolas is the only one with the presence of mind, willpower, and natural stealth to be of use. Everyone in the Fellowship just can't cut it. Even then, Legolas may end up being a liability because of his hatred/disgust for goblins and orcs. Really, the original group of Frodo, Sam, and Gollum was about as perfect as it could be.

Nah I think Aragorn could have been handy in the group A as well. He's pretty stealthy as well(got to be in his job) and bit of fighting muscle wouldn't be amiss(would have been handy with shelob!) and he showed resilience toward ring as well.

Of course biggest problem with him would be that he was pretty useful in Gondor too

 

[DamonJynx]

I like the idea, but generally I try to stay away from ru(i)nning sessions strictly as per the book. In my Elric campaign I've used some of the stories as they are with some obvious modifications - mainly removing Elric and other aspects of the EC. Mind you, I have the benefit that most of the guys in my group haven't read the EC novels, so I can do pretty much as I want.

I agree with Faelan Niall - I think you're much better off having the PC's do stuff that's more localised, yet still impacts on the overall success of the fellowship, without being directly involved with it.